The Journey Of A Mother In Mourning
A precious family photograph depicts one woman’s pilgrimage to Belgium
During the First World War Maud Marwood (then Maud Adams) lived in Leeds with her husband Joseph Adams, a worker in a woollen mill, and her five children. Her eldest son, Ernest, had joined the Army in 1915 at the age of 19, and went off to fight. Two years later came the terrible news that he had died, after being wounded near Ypres. Within 12 months Maud lost her husband too – it’s said in the family that he died of a broken heart.
Maud remarried in 1920 and had another child, but her second husband died in 1924. She then worked hard to bring up her family while running a greengrocer’s shop, helped out by her children. Commitments at home, coupled with a lack of money, probably prevented Maud from visiting Ernest’s grave in the years following his death, but things changed in 1929 when she married Eli Marwood, a builder who became wealthy.
After the marriage she visited Essex Farm Cemetery in Belgium. In the above photo Eli is on the left, Maud is third from left, and the young woman between them is probably one of her daughters. Ernest was buried not far away at Haringhe Military Cemetery.